The semiconductor industry has experienced rapid growth due to continuous improvements in the integration density of a variety of electronic components such as transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, and the like onto a semiconductor substrate. For the most part, these improvements in integration density have come from repeated reductions in minimum feature sizes, which allow more components to be integrated into a given area of the semiconductor substrate.
However, as the demand for miniaturization, higher speeds, and greater bandwidths, as well as lower power consumption and latency, has grown, there has also grown a need for smaller and smaller tolerances for the materials and processes used to manufacture semiconductor devices. In particular, as the size of the transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors, etc. have been reduced, the materials used to form these devices have also experienced a reduction in size. As such, techniques to better reduce and better control these materials are constantly being sought for further miniaturization.